Google Picks Be My Eyes as the Best App for Accessibility

May 8, 201810:44 am

Every year at Google’s I/O developer conference, the Internet giant hosts the Google Play Awards to recognize the best Android apps from the Play Store.

From accessibility apps, to start-ups, and augmented and virtual reality experiences, Google picks some of their favourite apps from the Play Store every year to find the gems you need on your smartphone.

The app works by allowing people to lend their eyes to a blind person through a live video connection, bringing together a network of sighted users.

Be My Eyes is an app made up of a global community that connects people who are blind or have low vision with sighted volunteers. For instance, a blind person may need the expiry date checking on their milk or to check whether their clothes match.

It’s an interesting concept for an app and demonstrates how tech can be developed to serve different communities.

About Nelson Régo

Nelson Régo is the owner and founder of the Cool Blind Tech website since November of 2012. Nelson launched the first show on March 14, 2013. He also directs the website as a whole, hiring staff, originating new shows, and approving all content.

In this Spotlight interview, James Oates sits down with Dr. Howard Kaplan, a retina surgeon, and the developer of Spotlight Text. Spotlight Text is an app that works with Bookshare to make eBooks accessible to the visually impaired. The app displays white text on a black background, and can make the text as large as a reader needs. It works only on iPads, but can also be airplayed to a TV screen by way of a dongle or an Apple TV. This allows for much larger text than can be provided with normal magnification software. The application also works with VoiceOver and braille displays, so that anyone with a visual impairment can use it. Working in cooperation with Bookshare, the app can access more than 450,000 books, and this number is constantly rising.
To ensure that students with visual impairments have access to printed materials, Dr. Kaplan has founded Spotlight Gateway, an organization that provides free access to his app, a free Bookshare membership, and a free iPad to those who are in financial need. Students need to be certified as having a visual impairment by a licensed Ophthalmologist, and they need to show that there is a financial need for the program.
You can try out a light version of the application to see if it works for you.